China: H5N1 infected poultry -- symptomless

For your information.

Extracts from a Reuters news article:
http://tinyurl.com/op24h

Bird flu-infected poultry found in China markets
Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:54 AM ET

By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Up to one percent of apparently healthy
chickens, ducks and geese in wet markets in southern China are
infected with the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus, researchers in
Hong Kong and China have found.

...this is the first time researchers have found and documented
on such a large scale infected chickens which do not show signs
of the disease. Chickens usually die within 24 hours of being
infected.

Led by microbiologist Guan Yi from the University of Hong Kong,
researchers collected 51,121 fecal and other samples from
healthy-looking birds in live-poultry markets across seven provinces
in southern China from January 2004 to June 2005.

The H5N1 virus was found in 1.8 percent of ducks, 1.9 percent of
geese, 0.46 percent of minor poultry like pheasants and quail, and
0.26 percent of chickens.

"This means out of every 100 birds in wet markets, one is positive
and infected with the virus. They look healthy but they can infect
others and they can kill people," Guan told Reuters on Friday.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences in late February.
...
To date, 10 people in China have died from H5N1, but most of the
cases occurred in places where there were no reported H5N1 outbreaks
or unusual deaths in birds - raising questions over how these people
came to be infected in the first place.

Experts began questioning this week if apparently healthy but
infected birds might be the culprit when a Chinese man died in
southern Guangdong province in early March after visiting several
poultry markets and an abattoir to carry out a market survey.

...chickens, China pledged last year to vaccinate all of them. ...
experts say that is impossible because millions of China's backyard
chickens roam free.

--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from ukba)
.

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